The Internet is For..

Well, besides that.

Yes, today's post is late; I have a perfectly valid excuse if you want to ask me so-please-don't-drop-my-grade-by-a-letter.

One of the really really cool things about PartnerPenguin working for a startup (zextme.com, formerly zebedoo.com) is that I get to find out about a lot of really cool and weird startups. This occasionally leads to cool things. I feel that promoting startups keeps up morale because of the omnipresent threat of failure. Here are some startups and old fogies who could be really helpful to being a college student or just navigating the internet for useful things instead of junk.

www.freedompop.com
Probably one of the best ideas/startups I've found recently has been freedompop.com. They solved my big problem of not having internet at home. Basically, you order a (refundable) special usb dongle (heehee) which has 4G network connection capacity. From there, it works like a data plan and the first 500 mb are free. 500mb is enough to do homework on Pearson's website (flash heavy) and check e-mails and all the wonderful comments from my readers (*_*). After that, they have a pay as you go plan which starts at $10/mo for the next threshold which is 1 GB of internet.
PartnerPenguin just ran a speed check and it's faster than the global average and 1/3 as fast as the fancy internet at his work (so pretty damn fast). It does run by similar rules to a cell phone in terms of working better near windows because 4G sattelite/cell tower signal. The only problem I've encountered so far was that I had the dongle sent to a different address than the billing address and it bounced and got delivered to the billing address. That defeated the purpose a bit since I'm afraid someone will steal my mail. But their customer service department has been pretty good so far. Will keep updates if I have a problem.

https://pantre.me/
This company is a refrigerator which they stock with (really yummy) healthy food which is all microwavable. They stock the fridge once a day and on sushi day they donate the leftovers (after a certain time) to local kids who need food. All of their food is better than Lean Cuisine at about the same price, and they have a first time user special offer of $5 off the total order. PartnerPenguin and I got 3 full meals for $8.

http://www.transitunlimited.org
I don't know if this is a startup but it's a really handy wiki I recently found. I really like that they put obscure transit juxtaposed with the main transit agencies so you can find out if there is a shuttle between the places where you want to go and how often it runs. I would love if there were more Eastern Cities on there so I'm going to see if I can help edit at least one city in and I call upon my East Coast friends who might have time to edit and share this potentially amazing and time-saving resource.

www.chegg.com
Not the newest site but definitely useful if your school's library doesn't have a rental aspect to their bookstore. Renting or buying textbooks can be a difficult toss-up because what if you need the information in the future? I've rented books mostly for General Ed's where the information was great and informative but I didn't really think that I would need the reference. It's always a good idea to keep your syllabi and maybe write down the ISBNs of the books so that you can get them from a library in the future. I've actually never used this site because I've only used my school's rentals but just make sure you read your whole rental agreement before you ship.

www.wolframalpha.com
The way to know the gods truly do smile upon us. This site is spectacular for most things math. I haven't used it for any other subjects but I think it knows about a lot of things, particularly science-y. It is really useful to see if the answer you got is correct though it doesn't always have a step-by-step explanation. It knows ALLL the math. It's pretty flippin' sweet.

www.amazon.com
I have a friend who worked for Amazon when they were "all a bunch of pot smokin' hippies on roller skates" and is still bitter they sold out. But Amazon has become quite an amazing resource for...just about anything. Of course, they have books but they also have a rather decent amount of food and gear for just about anything you want. If you have a safe mailing address and don't need something immediately, it is almost always cheaper to find a place to get it online. I know there are other places extant on the interwebs but I've had my credit card stolen so I don't generally give the number to places where I have a shadow of a doubt about their legit-ness. Amazon is pretty solid about that type of thing so it's cool.

www.khanacademy.org/
Hats off to Sal. Sal (and The Conductor) got me through PreCalculus. This site has little lesson plans on just about every topic I needed in Math and I think they have a pretty decent breadth of other stuff too. What I really really like about this site is that the "lessons" are very specific, short and well written. Sal, the narrator of the math ones, is very down to earth so at the beginning of the video you feel like he's just talking to you about nothing. And by the end, you know what the delta-epsilon definition of a limit is and you wonder how it got into your brain. Even if you're not in school, this can be a decent tool for learning small bits of knowledge on an as-needed basis.

www.pandora.com
The only reason I would want more than 500mb of internet. I am a strange sort of person who works 5097823640237 times better when I have music in the background. Not talking, just music. I love music like a drug and I need my fix. Pandora was one of my favorite internet discoveries ever. IF you've never used it, (after you make a free account) you just type the name of an artist or a song and it has an algorithm to find similar music. One trick my boss taught me is that you can't hit "like" too many times because it messes up the algorithm. If you have the free version, you get ads like broadcast radio but they tend to be the same ads over and over. (They really think I want a Veraggio ring.) The paid version, no ads, is only $4/mo but even that I can't afford so I just tune out for those 30 seconds. Considering I listen to broadcast radio the rest of the time, (upwards of 2 minutes of straight ads) it's not too bad. I've found some amazing new artists and some great gems which I wouldn't have ever happened upon and I love it a lot.
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No Recipe this week, e-mail or comment me and I'll write you one!

Midsemester Crisis

I have reached that juncture, the one I was afraid of the whole time. I thought it was just because my kitchen was making me gag but removing the trashcan mold and chicken fat (what? why? I don't know) seems to have solved that problem. Though, I still think my diet of breakfast sausage, peanut butter and jelly and samosas will return my tummy to normal soon enough. I hope.

No, that wasn't what I meant.

There is always this point in the semester where I realize I may or may not make it through. Not physically (though last year I questioned that sometimes), just, will I make it.

I took my second Physics midterm this morning. I was really proud of myself because I had studied a lot more, I had read the textbook thoroughly. I wrote what seemed sensible on my "cheat" sheet.

And then I got my ass handed to me. I've taken some decent whoopings; doing midterms at Big American Brand University in their hoity-toity Math department. Even though those were rougher than a blanket of pushpins, I still aced them. But this.....this was priceless.

I should point out that I'm not being a drama queen in this particular instance. If I fail this class, I cannot continue with my major. Physics is so integral to Geology (I'm obviously not Geophysics, but it's still important) that if I fail the class, I cannot continue in the immediate future. I guess that hit me like a piano full of bricks because for the first time I can clearly see a potential failure after 4 1/2 years worth of college. Well, second failure. The first failure was realizing that my initial path of Theatre would not get me anywhere. That hurt too.

It made me do some serious thinking today while The Little Bear threw tantrums and weeble-wobbles at me. What enabled me to get through those math classes? Mah Nishtana this class? Conceptually, it's not any harder. In fact, it's easier.

A few things did, all of which I obviously need to implement the hell out of if I wish to get my degree.

*Strong Learning Community*
One of the first things I did in my PreCalc class last year was find an additional class that taught me how to learn Math at Big American Brand University. This was taught by The conductor, an incredibly focused, pertinent and mildly intimidating man in a vest and a fedora. Perhaps it was tough love, but that man certainly was/is dedicated to his teaching. He would also say things like "Yeah...[some attractive actor] is ok but he's no Antonio Banderrrez." and "Math math math math!" (which literally startled me so badly I jumped and screamed).
He created a co-operative learning environment the likes of which I have never encountered. My classmates, despite being 5 years younger than me, worked together with me as a team pulling upwards of 20 hours a week studying together. The friends I made in that learning space are still some of my most inspiring and foundational friends.

PartnerPenguin and I were talking about it and Craptastic Colleges (please correct me if I'm wrong) have literally no student services. I have been tutoring this guy in trig because the tutors can only spend 15 minutes with a single student. The tutoring room used to be the Math Lab but now it's all Science studies and they don't know trig. It falls upon the students to gather and more importantly if it's a poorly taught class to somehow devine what they are supposed to be learning and teach themselves.

This is not the same as Big American Brand Uni, which isn't a whole lot better, but at least they decisively only teach theory in class and it is explicitly understood that you need to learn everything on your own. Here it is a weird in between where you're supposed to learn on your own but you can ask questions but they kinda get nowhere. Mostly, it seems, because that's where they expect their students to go. (Average grad rate for both schools I'm attending is 16%, average transfer is 8%)

*Clear, Concise and Do-able Planning/Time Management*
Time is finite. Figure out what to do with it.

Agenda planners are often helpful, I imagine smartphones could be too. One of my favorite techniques when I'm overwhelmed is to write out everything (EVERYTHING includes food, prep and eating time) that needs to be done in a 1-2 day period. Write next to it the approximate time you think it will take. I often overestimate, completely, by anywhere between 30 min to an hour, esp with Math or Science homework.
On a separate piece of paper, break down your day from henceforth. I write intervals of an hour at most, usually 30 minutes. Every 20-30 minutes I mandate a small break and every 2 hours or so a real break, usually including food. It is also necessary for me to schedule in walks since that's part of my physical deal but walks are one of the easiest ways to reduce stress and get a little exercise. Usually after 2 days of intensive planning like this, I get a general rhythm that I can work with for about a week, at least.

I also throw myself mini-dance-party breaks with songs like the two here.
Another thing we do is we set a duck alarm to tell us it's time for bed. When things are stressful, it's probably being compounded by lack of sleep and hygiene. So take a shower and go to bed.

*Acceptance of Simplicity*
While talking with someone recently, I thought about how sometimes meals just need to be cooked properly before you add the fancy seasoning. The basics need to be met. They do not always need to be surpassed. But they always need to be met and in my worldview they always need to be met in a manner that provides a strong foundation whether or not seasonings (or upper divs) are added later, when you're more comfortable.

*Clear communication with Partner/Friends/Family of What You're Going Through*
You can't get support if no one knows what's going on. I try to have as much in person interactions with my friends as I can. This means for me riding on buses for a long time but that's ok. Friends are worth it. I picked up Pyschology Today at the store and it confirmed that. In-person friends and strong interpersonal connections help you live better.
Sometimes you may not be coherent and may just need to blurb and blab and have someone ask you what that was all about in the future.

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This recipe was made for Mama and Papa Bear (parents of The Little Bear) in appreciation of letting us borrow their laundry facilities.

Lentil Curry-ish Dish
1 clove garlic, diced
oil
most of 1 onion
Juilliened tomatoes (probably should have used canned diced ones, preferably from Indian food market or just un-seasoned if you don't have one of those)
about a cup of lentils
MDH Chana Dal Masala (brand I bought at an Indian Grocery store, I don't know the differences) I know Patak's is also a good brand, no MSG. PartnerPenguin is allergic to MSG and in general, it's not great for you.

In on pot: boil water. Add lentils, let simmer on low heat for about as long as it takes to watch a movie. Maybe a movie and a couple episodes of Gravity Falls (God I love that show).

You might want to wait at least an hour before doing this step because the lentils take a long time to cook.

In a pan: Warm oil. Add garlic and onions. Caramelize (make transparent but not quite brown) onions, garlic should just smell good but make sure you don't burn it.

Drain lentils, put in pan on simmering (low) heat. You may have to add some fresh water. Add tomatoes and about a tablespoon of the seasoning. You can add more or less, depending on your threshold for spicy. Simmer for about 10 more minutes. Or if you're PartnerPenguin, you simmer them all together for an hour because the lentils weren't done before adding. This option would incorporate the flavor of the onions more. As long as the lentils are cooked, these two steps shouldn't make too much difference.

I might add Sirache if I liked spicy. I'd probably serve over brown rice. (Brown rice is a 1:1.5 ratio rice to water. Boil for 2-5 minutes then let simmer for 40, covered.)

Obvious Secrets Young People (My Friends) Don't Seem to Know

Basically, it really boils down to read everything you sign. Except maybe on websites' terms of service because you'll realize that there are clauses such as the one in one of Game Stop's Terms of Service where they actually say the soul of the undersigned belongs to the company.

It's probably a combination of the fact that I worked over-full time years before my peers and the fact that I was horribly taken advantage of during that first job that it makes me super pissed off when my friends/family have decent(ish) jobs who take advantage of them. We are fortunate (so very very fortunate) to live in a country where fair working conditions are legally mandated. I think this rant is mostly aimed at my peers, those people in my graduating class (Oh EIGHT!) who are going out into the workforce for possibly the first time in their lives.

This is the way it works, that I've seen: a business (usually a large business with either over 100 employees or fewer, but more apathetic ones) will hire a fresh new face who is jolly and out of college and in a metric butt-ton of debt. They will hand the new hire stacks, literally, of paperwork and give a strict time limit for finishing them because they are paying for training and paperwork should only take fifteen minutes. The new hire is then pressured into signing everything without reading or digesting what contract they have just entered into. But everything seemed reasonable so it's all good. Besides, if you don't sign today, there are fifteen other people who will take the job so today has been a waste if you don't. (I have only had one job where they actually quizzed me on my contract, I liked that job a good deal.)

Work starts. All seems pretty great. The pay is good enough, maybe the work is tedious, maybe the work is frustrating.

Then the bosses ask once in a while for the new hire to stay a little overtime. The money for overtime is fantastic and the new hire is barely able to eat meat every week so of course they take it. Then overtime becomes regular. Then more time is added and there are threats that if the new hire doesn't take the hours, they will be fired. Subtle threats, to be sure, but extant.


This situation I recently found out has been happening to a friend of mine. She has been working 12 hour days of manual labor regularly with just one lunch break and four 15 minute breaks. She is so destitute that she has been thanking her luck for some extra cash.She is so exhausted that she was even perturbed at my outrage at how illegal that is.

Ok, first off, that's not legal. Unless you are in Hollywood, regularly working 12 hours in a 24 hour period is actually not kosher. Businesses use a power disparity and assume that their workers don't know their rights to allow for this to happen. Even if overtime is allowable in the contract (which is usually is, at one and half times regular pay), there it is absolutely, completely unacceptable to threaten someone's job if they do not agree to work optional hours. Especially not an additional 4 hours.

Another thing with the timing. By law, once you work over five and half (or six? I think it's six but it winds up being five and a half) you are supposed to have a 30 minute lunch. If you work up to 12, you certainly have to have a second meal, I forgot to look at the lower bound of that threshold. There is a Federal Law which states that you must have a ten minute break every 2 hours. If you work a 12 hour day, you should have a total of an hour of meals and three 10-15 minute breaks.

*This is just a separate issue but your bathrooms should also be useable. It's unsafe if they're not and CVS will soon be hearing my wrath because I had to change a toddler in their bathroom which was not fit for anyone to use, even meth addicts.*

Ok, but jobs can suck. (I'm really glad mine doesn't, if you're reading this!!) The next step is actually sometimes harder than enduring subtle threats and heavy lifting. The companies which exploit their workers in this manner know that they are so exhausted that they can't do anything about it. But if one can overcome this fatigue, it's really difficult who to turn to. Even harder is speaking the right language. Before going to anyone, have as much hard evidence as you can. Then you may get somewhere with your HR, Corporate or a department of government who deals with unemployment and employee fairness. But as I learned with my health saga, if you have hard evidence and someone backing you up, you will get a lot farther.




Some advice I learned today: If a girl is with a guy for four months and has never met his friends, she is not his girlfriend.

And here is an artist with a sense of humor about his music. I loved the original song since I first heard it but this I find this a signature of someone who takes imitation to truly be a form of flattery.

I can't decide which is my favorite part, the full chorus or the awesome rock guitar solo.

Simple Sisters/אחזת טמות

My friend, The Beard, told me that by the end of my posts that he was left sad and hungry so I'm going to try to change the former.

In truth, I've had some pretty amazing things happen in the past week. Sometimes I must remind myself that if I truly need something, the world will make it happen. I don't mean this in any kind of material or monetary sense. Most of the time in my case it comes in the form of community, healing and friendship.

My journey this week has mostly been about my being a woman. Genetically I am female but the concept of being a woman, especially post-puberty has always been a strange one for me. I was fortunate to grow up in a pretty egalitarian Jewish school so there has always been a spiritual aspect of womanhood. Even this was a little confusing since I could read Torah and lead services but there were still jerks who refused to show me how to wrap t'fillin the Sphardic way because I was a girl.

I've always been good at almost every subject in school so I never thought to discriminate what is and isn't a good field for "girls" because I'd thought it was just based on merit. I never had any particular problems in Theatre during my years studying that because it is also a very egalitarian field with a great acceptance of the odd.

And then I get a hair up my ass to study science. Geology in particular is such a new field (relatively) that, at least at the Great American University where I attended last year, over half the department are women. Again, I think this aspect is pure luck.

But I'm learning more and more that in other STEM majors this is not at all the case. I went to a conference this weekend of women in STEM majors celebrating not being robots who sacrifice their gender identity to be in male dominated fields but figuring out how to change the archetypes and actually bring women in science, not just around it. The specifics of the conference were to provide support and encouragement to go for higher degrees such as masters and PhD's but the impact went far beyond that. We did a team-building exercise where we built a prosthetic hand (would highly recommend this if you're in the corporate sector because there's an actual product at the end) for victims of land-mine accidents. We worked with a cosmic healer and also a woman who basically says "fuck you" to anyone in opposition to her and gets shit done. I should mention that by "gets shit done" I mean she heads one of the most successful Biotech Grad Departments in California, which probably means the country.

I think the story that touched me most was one woman who got her acceptance letter for her PhD the same day she discovered she was pregnant. She said that she had to teach the department the laws because they didn't know what maternity leave was. I think this is sad in a couple ways, beyond the obvious that they think women in their department aren't allowed to have a family. It also saddens me that they probably don't have paternity leave either which unfairly puts a lot more burden on new fathers who have to work and then go home and be sleep deprived because you never get a rest with a new baby. So, in general, these policies make it stupidly hard to have a family, increasing the problem that smart people can or don't like (for one reason or another) procreating. The modern concept of family is hard enough to ponder but it's impossible if you know there will not be sufficient support from...anywhere.

But overall, this conference was beautiful. Being in a room full of people who non-judgementally support you as a human being and support your academic endeavors is one of the best feelings in the whole world. Even just being in a room with one person who supports you in all ways is special. I hope that you can experience this feeling very soon if you're not alreay.


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BBQ Beans with Mac N Cheese (portion for one person, two days)
I will literally eat this repeatedly until I get sick of it, which is pretty uncommon for me.

Bean part:
1/4 c. dry beans. Use Pinto, Red, Anasazi or even White. But Pinto and Anasazi are best.
1-2 Bay leaves
1/2-1 tsp Better Than Bullion
Trader Joe's BBQ Sauce

To cook beans (I think I've written this before, so pardon me): Wash, sort. Soak overnight. Maybe put an asprin in to reduce bean-fart gas. Make sure you cover the beans with like, 2 inches of water when you soak, they grow up so fast.

When nice and plump in morning, rinse with running water then put in crock pot with the bay leaves and Better Than Bullion (you might want to dissolve this separately with some hot water. Cover the beans with a couple inches of water and leave on low while you go to your classes (6 hrs, ish). Beans should be pretty much falling apart or at least tender when you fish them out.

When you go to heat up the beans in a pan, add in the BBQ sauce from TJ's and enjoy!

To cook mac'n'cheese:
1/4 cup dry pasta if it's small, closer to 1/2 c if it's big pasta
about 1/3 of a knuckle wide slice of butter
a couple splashes of milk
maaaaybe a teaspoon of flour, but add only what you need.
Boil water for pasta. As that comes to boil, grate a hunk of cheese. I find a sharp or stinky cheese works well, anything from cheddar to parm to things with dark moldybits. Anyway, just make sure the cheese is small and thin, easy to melt. Maybe about a handful of cheese or two at the end. When water boils, throw in pasta, about 1/4 cup or less.

Once pasta is cooked, drain it and leave in colander for a quick minute. Cut about 1/2 TBSP butter and melt in the pot. Pour in about 2 TBSP at most milk. It should be on medium or low heat, do not boil. Add in cheese slowly, making a melty mess. You should add more butter and milk if it looks too chunky. Finally, if you've put in too much milk, sprinkle (very lightly) a little flour so that it thickens to the consistency of sticking to back of spoon.

Incorporate your pasta and YUM!!!!

This song is from my best friend Good Panda. I thought it fitting around the High Holy Days.

Truth and Lies of Reality

Lies Reality Told Me

*Ramen is cheap. I found out recently that if you look at the price of Ramen, it is actually nearly $10/lb. 3 packages, 1 oz each are $1, but there are 16 oz in a pound.The most fanciest beans at the market on bulk are never more than $4/lb, most normal beans are $2/lb. (I don't know if I've mentioned it but I always go into the bulk section with a 1 cup dry measuring cup so I always get exactly 1/4 lb of beans.) You'd be hard pressed to find rice more than $2/lb. In fact, you should almost ALWAYS be able to find meat for less than $10/lb and meat is the grand prize. This actually pissed me off when I figured this out because usually the first thing people refer to about poor college students is that they live on nothing but Ramen. This means that as a society, we're completely skewed on what things are actually worth and what "food" can be. Ramen is so completely lacking of almost any nutritional value combined with using MSG for flavoring (I use Better Than Bullion if I do make it) it's like...negative food. Then I just felt really really bad that 1.) college kids think that's the only way to eat cheaply and 2.) how unable to learn they must be because they're not getting proper nutrition because they think they can't afford it.

*You have to go to college to get a good job. I was talking with a receptionist lately and she was saying that from a marketing standpoint, colleges are pure genius. They have convinced a whole society that you need a degree which will put you at a minimum of $20,000 debt in order to get a "good" (something where you might eventually be able to pay back your debt) job. I feel like this has hit very close to home for me. I had to take a break this past weekend because the pace of the past year has just caught up to me and I could not keep running. Whenever I get ten minutes to think in a row, it makes me seriously question my ever-lasting toil at a degree which may or may not be futile. I've been accused, by a professor, of running towards money by turning my back on Theatre and going to the Sciences. Please respond on this point as I still haven't made up my mind how I feel about this comment.


Truths Reality Told Me

*You will never get an ounce of work done once you start playing Minecraft.* Why do you think this blog was 3 days late? (It was also Rosh Hashana this weekend.)

*Sleep/rest and drink is the best way to battle sick Last week I fought two colds from both The Little Bear and PartnerPenguin. By the end of the week I gave up trying to be productive and just drank tons of tea and did as little as possible, save math homework (which for some reason is fun to me). I didn't even judge myself for falling asleep reading my Physics textbook. Sometimes, you need to give yourself a break. I feel a lot better now.

*Obama on radio So it turns out our President promotes himself on the radio. But not like, advertisements. Nope, just talked with the talkshow host and they continued to play snippets of it on the local R&B station which plays in the sketch-as-all-get-out-24-hour laundromat where I go. I thought it was even better that the DJ's who played back clip urged their listeners to vote. I didn't have a local R&B station last election. It's good to be in this area sometimes. <3

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Recipe this week not inspired by "A Man A Can A Plan" but might as well have been.

Chicky with Beer Can Up Its Butt
1 whole chicken (We found one at Trader Joes for $6)
1 mediocre beer in can. We used Simpler Times from Trader Joes.
A bunch of butter and a bunch of paprika (not necessary, just added because

PartnerPenguin is, at times, hopelessly Hungarian)

*Drink half the beer. Preheat oven to 350
*Take out gross bits from inside of chicky. Perhaps make Dirty Rice with it later.
*Bring butter to room temperuature, wash your hands. Take butter in 1/2 tbsp is amounts and slather over the skin of chicky. Sprikle on paprika. Go in other room if you are me and this grosses you out.
*Place half-full beer can in a glass pan deep enough to hold the chicky when she eventually falls over drunk. Place chicky on can so it fits in the cavity.
*Bake chicken in oven for maybe an hour. Thigh should pretty much fall off. You can cover it with tin foil if you want it to cook faster, I think. We just let it sit and it cooked and was one of the best things ever.

Also, I may be allergic to carrots. Worth more investigating.
Video on this one not worth watching, but song=^__^

Honors and Healers

You may or may not know, to a certain level of detail, that over the past year I changed my status from "temporarily able bodied" to "not so much." I went from living on a mountain and easily walking the 700 ft incline over half a mile to and from school every day to not being able to walk 100 ft in a flat apartment. I suppose I'd actually been ill the whole time (year and and a half), but I would completely ignore it until I was in the hospital or Urgent Care (where I was a regular). No one could figure out what was wrong until this summer. 

The diagnosis wound up being my soaz muscle (giant muscle connecting your leg and torso) was badly injured and spasmed to the point where I would get paralyzed for hours at a time. Since it was an untreated injury, the damage spread to other parts of my body, such as my digestive tract which would occasionally just stop working for weeks at a time. The therapy and exercises which I have since been participating in have not always had an immediately positive effect; leaving me lying on the floor in pain for hours while the Little Bear sits on me, thinking me an amusing log. 

But this experience has probably taught me more than the eleventy-five years I've been in school. Things I've always taken for granted; like walking. And enjoying my days more or less pain free. I've learned how to ask for help, to even sometimes demand it. I've also been forced to slow down. When you can't help but appreciate things on longer time scales other than the instantaneous effects of regular 20-something-year olds, a strange appreciation comes. Perhaps it's an old appreciation that we aren't used to. I've learned to draw healing from people. Just the act of caring to ask what's wrong when you see someone (young) using a cane helps the person using the cane know they are not suffering alone. 

I am blessed, on top of that, to know serveral healers. People like The Photographer who turned me upside down and hung me from a bar which let my spine straighten. It straightened so much that I'm now half an inch taller. Or the Menonite Woman who gave the Dvar at shul on Friday night who reminded me that the greatest way to learn about a person is by asking.

But probably the best thing that happened in the past week was the rare occurance of conferring upon the title of Magid to my Saba (grandfather). 

[Perhaps it should be mentioned that I adopt family so if I refer to someone as kin, it's because they are kin, not necessarily that I grew up with them in my life.] 

I had read about synagouges of old having someone called a Magid, a storyteller, who kept the stories of the community. Almost like the Giver, in a way. A local, communal historian. I have never heard of anyone actually having this title because, maybe local history isn't as important anymore. This, however, is the perfect title for Saba. My shul wrote its own Siddur (prayerbook) because there was a need for an LGBTQ siddur and not one in existence. Saba wrote a goodly portion of this siddur, caputring the feelings of a community "double blessed instead of double cursed" (as the Rabbi says) with being both Jewish and Gay. He's also wrote a whole manner of books on the presence of queer people in Jewish history and texts.

But above all, he is a healer. When we did the ceremony, the Rabbi asked people to come forward whom Saba had just been there at the right moment for them. A good third of the congregation came forward. I'm so proud and happy for him to have figured out what his position is and been acknowledged as important by so many people.

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Food idea for the day, since figs are in season.

A bunch of ripe figs, best picked from tree or farmers market but Trader Joe's also has decent ones. Maybe 5-10.

Stinky cheese. Blue is on the milder end. We like Roqufort or anything with an indigo center. If you can't stand stinky cheese, something super sharp would work too.

To make: 

Preheat oven to 350 or so. Maybe 325? Cook time might be longer but easier to monitor.

Cut off the little hats at the top of the fig, down far enough that you get the open center. Cut up a bit of cheese, stuff inside. Put the hat back on top. Put on a dish with sides (like a casserole dish) and bake about 10 minutes. Let cool, is delicious.
Buy the ingredients on ZeBeDoo!

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In competely other news, I am now offically obsessed with this song, both for its content and its animation. It hails back to the Beatles while simultaneously using very new technology. And trumpets are always great.

Make Tartlets, Not Muggings

Partner Penguin and I were at Cotsco the other day, in the Oatmeal isle (as you do) and this woman picked up some steel cut oatmeal and talked out whether it was worth buying or not. When we suggested making Oatmeal cookies she replied "Why would I make them, I can just BUY them!" Something about this statement just irked me that 1) she had enough money to willy nilly buy really crappy store cookies and 2) it made me sad that she couldn't afford the time to make delicious Oatmeal cookies. I understand that baking is not everyone's favorite thing to do but there is just something comforting to have some warm fresh cookies and maybe a glass of milk. (I have watched Stranger Than Fiction a few too many times.) So we cook. This is what we do for fun.

Partner Penguin has been experimenting with muffin tins, Trader Joes brand pie crust and various fruits. The yummy result being adorable strawberry-banana tartlets. At bedtime, I put three away for a family I bearsit (the bear happens to be a 1 1/2 yr old human child) for on Mondays since they'd let us borrow their internet for the day. Then last night, I had a dream that I was mugged on my walk to work. So this morning when a homeless man asked me for change, fearing my dream may come true, I offered him a tartlet. He greatly accepted. Anything helps, it doesn't matter who you are.

Humans are social creatures. We love to forget this in the wonderfulness of text messaging and smart phones. I think the thing I've learned the quickest and the strongest is that when you can't afford luxuries like internet and 4G wireless, you have to re-learn how to be a people. I have found my solution to this is food. Food is cheaper when shared. It also tastes better. Also, if your good at making it, you can become quite popular, creating a positive feedback loop. Food is also simple and instant gratification. 

I think community is something I haven't fully appreciated until this past year. When I lived down South in Expensiveland, I had relatives and friendly acquaintences but almost all of whom were completely absent to help me in times of serious need. Or worse, they offered help and then made me pay them back with 20% of my income, immediately after recieving the aforementioned help. 
I moved to Northernland last year and re-found communities that help fill holes in my soul; which I hadn't realized had gotten so deep. I have been so touched and felt so grateful in the past couple weeks for the friends who have offered everything from a hug (IRL or virtual, sometimes text can do good) to a graphing calculator when I really needed them. Singing with my shul's choir has kept me from going absolutely bat-shit on top of the huge honor that they are bestowing on me by letting me sing with them on High Holy Days. 

November may be far off, but I am so thankful right now to all the people in my life keeping me sane. Maybe I'll have more practical insight next week.

Food tip of the week: Anastasi beans (anyone know a different name for them, I know Anastasi is derogatory towards Hopi) are very meaty and delicious. Works well alongside Pinto. Paired with kale or something else dark and green, pretty flippin' sweet.

Also, WTF who leaves a random black pill at a library study booth?!